scanning headlines

I have learned not to follow the news anymore. It is dangerous business, so I just read the headlines instead. Headlines provide some insight into how things are going and how close we might be at any given time to total and complete self destruction. If I was to believe the headlines about storms, stock markets, and the monsters that lurk under our beds, I would be paralyzed but prepared for certain death.

I don’t mean to do one of those, when I was growing up things were different, but when I was growing up things were different. News was printed inside a newspaper and appeared on television during the dinner hour. That was it. The rest of the time was mine to do and feel what I wanted. That is not the case today. Twitter pushes news to your phone. People copy and paste news reports on their Facebook feeds, but whats worse, some of that is not even news, it is unsupported and often unsubstantiated opinion pieces that like a headline convince us of one thing or another.

I think this is dangerous business. Not because the world is not important or that what is going on in the world is not important. What is dangerous is the speed at which accurate and inaccurate news floods our mind and impacts our mood and we have to be on guard against it.

I’m not an old dinosaur, although a case can be made to defend that position, but I think we’ve gone mad and I know we won’t stop, but that’s ok. As long as you and I stop, our world, as we perceive and know it will be different. It will be a wonderful world, just day way Louis Armstrong saw, despite knowing different. It will be a positive, optimistic, world of great possibilities and triumphs. It will be a world of why not and what if. It is the kind of world to get excited about, but before that can happen, we have to guard and remove ourselves from the world that beats us down with misery and doom.

Knowing is a choice like everything else. It goes right back to the garden of eden and the tree of good and evil. Either you want to know or you don’t want to know. Now, not wanting to know doesn’t mean that you don’t care, it just means you don’t want too know and there is a case to be made for not wanting to know.

There is too much. Far too much sad news. Not enough good news. Not enough time at the microphone for the millions and millions of good stories that never get considered at all. The smile that you receive while ordering a coffee. The door that was opened for you. The compliment you received from your employer. That flat tired that was changed by a complete stranger that saw you stranded by the side of the road.

We need more good stories. We need more good news. We need less reports. Less complaining. Less division. Less picking sides. We need a lot less being right or wrong.

We need some headlines and be satisfied with those headlines. We need to redeem our time, and give it back to ourselves so we can create some good news in our daily lives.